This year’s Chinese New Year was meant to be a short reset. I took a few days in Phnom Penh with my wife to step away from marking, proposals, and the quiet strategising that comes with building a life in higher education. It was supposed to be a pause, a sightseeing holiday. Instead, it became perspective. We visited Tuol Sleng (S21), the former school turned prison under the Khmer Rouge. The rooms are preserved as they were found: metal bed frames, shackles, faint blood spl